Coal-tipped ears flicked back, listening to noises behind him even before his mind began to process them. Heavy footsteps, familiar in their pattern, the rustle of branches being brushed aside by a deep red body emerging - he knew those sounds, knew them and did not know whether he welcomed them or not. d'Artagnan, trusted friend and Doctor - so why did he want to run away, flee from this, run headfirst into a tree and faint? The gruff voice bore a wisdom he couldn't deny, yet it left little impression upon his face of ice. "Apologizing won't-" he began tersely, before cutting himself off. Apologizing won't turn back time. Okay, so maybe, just maybe, he was wrong about all of this. About perfection and imperfection, mistakes and glories. About who he was, and why he was, and what he wanted to be and why he should or shouldn't be that.

In the past, mistakes had been.. uncomfortable. Shortcomings, exploited and pressed, like bruises never left alone. His ears fell back in an astounding show of emotion for the moment, though his gaze remained veiled, his mind trying to break free from the ice and spin unhindered. Mistakes had always meant a failure. It had always instilled the desire to turn back time and make them undone.

Touching Deimos couldn't come undone. Upsetting Kou couldn't, either. Yet it was his instinctual reaction - to wish for time to turn back, so he never would've done anything of it. Walk the road of perfection, never erring, at least not so majorly as to suffer consequences as these. Yet they said you should learn from your mistakes. It was true that he'd always striven to never make the same mistake twice, but at the same time, he'd never been asked - or taught - to apologize for a mistake. You owed up to them. Apologizing was like asking for forgiveness where none would be given. You were just expected to deal with the shit and move on and don't do it again, but never forget that you had done it.

So, obviously, the lesson learned was: don't touch Deimos when Kou is around. But there was more to it... So, he'd worried Kou with it. And his callousness had just upset her. That, though, was an integral part of him, and hard to get rid of. It was damnably useful from time to time, too.

His thoughts spun too fast. His eyes closed. He did not have time for all these thoughts. No time to pick them apart and analyze them. He just knew what he thought he'd known, and what he obviously didn't know.

"I'm sorry," he said, the words foreign on his tongue. Not the first time he apologized, no, for he played a game of social courtesy and niceties most of the time - but, perhaps, the first time he said it without truly understanding, not grasping everything which floated through his head. "I didn't mean to upset you." That much, at least, was true. Slowly he opened his eyes again, something faraway in them; briefly he looked at Kou, then out into the forest again.

Nothing at all made sense.